


AELDWS Drabbles 2016

by chasingriver



Series: Arthur/Eames drabbles - AELDWS [13]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: inceptiversary, Dogs, Epilogue, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Writing on Skin, different tags for each unrelated chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7451374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingriver/pseuds/chasingriver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This contains my drabbles for the 2016 Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing (AELDWS) contest. Each drabble will be a new chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dog-sitting for Beginners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cobb had said, “Oh, there’s nothing to it,” and left him with a bag of kibble and a dog with sad eyes and a permanently worried expression that already made him feel like he was getting it wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: locked out

  


_artwork by youcantsaymylastname_

  


Arthur propped the apartment door open with his foot as he signed for the package, and Atlas dashed between his legs and off down the hallway. 

“Goddamnit! He’s not allowed out!” Arthur dropped the box and ran after him.

“Sorry,” the delivery guy said. 

“Not your fault,” Arthur called back, scooping up the pug. “He’s supposed to be trained.” 

It wasn’t until he got back to his door, squirming dog in hand, that he realized his real problem — the door had closed and locked behind him. 

“You,” he said, looking at the pug, “are a pain in the ass.” 

The dog licked his hand. Arthur wiped it on his jeans in disgust.

“I’m never dog-sitting again,” he muttered. 

He dialed the building superintendent. It went to voicemail. “Hi, this is Arthur in 703. I’m locked out, and I have stuff in the oven. Can you get back to me? Thanks.” 

Five minutes passed. He called again. “Yeah, it’s Arthur. 703. Still locked out.”

Fifteen minutes. The smell of fresh brownies wafted under the door, which … wasn’t good. It meant they were done, and would very soon be burned. “Me again. 703. It’s you or the fire department.”

His hopes were raised when the elevator dinged, but it was only his neighbor, Mr. Eames. The irritatingly handsome, British one. 

“Need a hand? Cute puppy.” 

“Locked out. His fault.” 

“Did you lock the silly man out?” Eames cooed. 

Arthur glared at him. “I’m making brownies. They’re going to burn and set off the fire alarm.” 

“Well, darling, you should have said. I’ll be right back.” 

He returned, moments later, with a set of lock-picking tools. 

“That’s … disturbing,” Arthur said.

“I promise I’ll only break in when you ask me to.”

Arthur forgave Cobb’s dog. 


	2. The Cobb Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fischer job, a.k.a. “The one time Dom Cobb managed not to ruin everyone’s life, but not for lack of trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: altered  
> Setting: canon

_Stateside._

Arthur’s idea, at the baggage claim. A proposition. 

They’re corporate now. Arthur runs point and Eames handles the extractions. Only the interesting jobs. Only the two-person ones. Trust is hard to come by. Money, not so much. Saito had ensured that. 

Cobb had been wrong about Ariadne. She’s back in Paris, working as an architect. Dropped out of dreamshare completely. 

Yusuf is back with his cat in Mombasa, avoiding field work. He and Eames are speaking again. 

Cobb stays in the sun-baked fever dream of Los Angeles, raising his kids, calling Arthur at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Eames always declines the phone, and Arthur never presses the issue. 

They secretly elope and go to Greece for their honeymoon. Saito sends them a card with his congratulations and the keys to a London flat — they don’t ask how he found out. They keep their loft in New York and divide their time between the two cities. 

Fischer starts a bakery in L.A. 

Cobb takes his kids there every Saturday for cupcakes.

Arthur still takes his coffee black. Eames still likes croissants. 

Some things are the same as they were before the Fischer job. But only a few. 


	3. Second Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He blamed Cobb. For everything, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: bitter  
> Setting: canon

It’d been seven miserable months. Not that Eames was counting or anything. 

The small cons in Mombasa weren’t much, but they kept him in stiff drinks and takeaway. More importantly, they were half a world away from Arthur, who’d chosen Cobb over him. 

Goddamned Cobb. 

Cobb and his dead wife, and Arthur and his ‘I have to help him get back to his kids — for Mal.’ 

— which was noble and kind, and that had only made it worse.

He’d heard about their new inception job. He knew they’d call him — they’d need a forger. But he didn’t think Cobb would be stupid enough to show up in Mombasa. Not after his subconscious sabotaged the Cobol job. 

He’d hoped it would be Arthur who’d come, and he’d be able to talk sense into him. 

Instead, the squinty bastard is sitting here, dangling Arthur in front of him like bait. And they both know he’ll say yes. He’d be a fool not to. 

“Run interference,” Cobb says.

He ‘saunters interference’ instead, not much caring if Cobb gets himself killed. They can do the job without him. They’d all be better off. 

He waits downstairs, surprised when Cobb shows up in one piece with an amused billionaire in tow. 

It’s going to be one of _those_ jobs. 

But if this power-crazy mogul really can get Cobb back to his kids, then it means he can get him another shot with Arthur. And for that? He’ll even put up with Cobb.


	4. Making the Best of a Ridiculous Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When his very existence merited an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Arthur didn't have high expectations for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: skin  
> Setting: magical realism

Arthur Callahan got the shallow end of the gene pool. 

“Late-onset dermasocius,” they called it. 

Everyone else was born with a string of symbols on their left arm. As you got older, the symbols slowly resolved into the letters in your soulmate’s name, and everyone spent their mid-teens running algorithms on who matched up to A__H_R _AL__H__, or whatever. If you got lucky and ran across your soulmate before then, the spaces filled in like a lucky guess on the Wheel of Fortune. 

But if the symbols weren’t there to begin with, it meant one of two things: you had to wait and hope for the best, or you were destined to be alone. 

The other kids mocked him relentlessly. His parents wanted to send him to the ‘special school’ with the telepaths, but he refused.

He was seventeen when he woke up with “milk, eggs, onions” written on his arm. 

“Mom? Mom!” 

She was in the kitchen, making a shopping list. 

“Well, at least it’s … something?” she said, smiling weakly and sounding unconvinced, and the writing changed to “Why couldn’t he have been normal?”

He ran from the house, trying not to cry. Apparently he had late-onset telepathy as well. A really weird kind. 

He wore a lot of long-sleeved shirts. 

He took the only job where people saw his disability as a benefit. He became a barista. 

_Double espresso, latte (extra foam)._ Each order showed up on his arm as his customers walked through the door, ready by the time they reached the counter. He got amazing tips. 

_English Breakfast tea, room for milk_. Unusual. He glanced up, and English Breakfast was staring at his own arm, confused. 

“Are you Arthur Callahan, by any chance?” 


	5. Illegally Parked in the Tow-Away Zone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur had always thought of “the road not taken” as a concept, not a lifestyle choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: the road not taken
> 
> Thanks to youcantsaymylastname for the idea and the beta!

Shots whiz by them as they run through the airport rental car garage. They’d expected militarization, but not this bad. A bullet catches Arthur in the leg and he crumples. Eames wraps an arm around his shoulders and drags him behind a concrete pillar. 

“You okay?” 

“No, they shot out my fucking knee.” He almost falls again when he tries to put weight on it. “You’ve gotta drive.” 

All the color drains from Eames’ face. “Can’t.” 

“What?”

“Drive. I can’t drive.” 

“Oh my god, Eames!” Panic permeates his voice. “How can you _not drive?”_

“Grew up in London. C’mon, they’re getting closer!” Eames half-carries Arthur and deposits him ungracefully in the passenger’s seat of the closest rental car.

Arthur stifles a yelp as his leg twists at an unnatural angle. He glares at Eames, who winces. 

“Sorry. Okay, talk me through this. Can’t be that hard.” 

The rental car associate runs up, waving his hands. “That one’s not yours!”

Eames looks over brightly. “Says so on the contract,” he lies, and hops in the driver’s seat.

“Brake pedal left, gas right, shift lever on the steering column,” Arthur shouts over the noise of gunfire. 

Eames’ eyes flick over the controls. “Got it.” 

“Foot on the brake to go into Reverse and Drive.”

He slams the shift lever into Reverse and hits the gas, and the tires squeal — and the car goes nowhere. 

“Parking brake!” Arthur yells. 

Eames looks around in a panic. It’s not between the seats, where they are in the movies.

“Um, left hand, under the console, should be a lever of some kind,” Arthur says, miming where to look. 

It takes a few seconds but Eames finds it. When he releases it, the car flies backwards. 

Arthur, unable to brace himself with his bad leg, hits the dash and shouts in pain. He gropes for his seatbelt and says, “Just get us to the meet-up.” By the time they get out of the deck, the car’s dented on three corners and missing a mirror.

The first thing Arthur does out of the dream is look around the room and say, “Okay, how many of you assholes can’t drive?” 

Eames looks at him, defensive and hurt. “I got us out.” 

“Leaving half the car in the garage. Anyone else?”

Ariadne timidly puts her hand up.

“Okay, you’re building a driving simulation. By the time we’re done, you guys will be able to parallel park a hearse in New York.”

She heads for her desk and Eames follows, avoiding eye contact with Arthur.

“Shit,” he says, and pulls Eames to the side. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. Thanks for getting me out of there. I just assumed, you know?” 

Eames looks unimpressed. 

“Can I buy you dinner to make up for being an asshole?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Eames says, cracking a smile, “but unless you want to end up as a vehicular homicide statistic, you might want to do something nice for her, too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [chasingriversong](http://chasingriversong.tumblr.com).


End file.
